The secret of Los Angeles’ great-tasting
water

Los Angeles has done
it again -- topping the list for the World’s tastiest tap
water.

"Good water rises to the top," said producer Jill
Klein Rone of the 18th annual “academy awards” of water
held in Berkeley Springs, West Va. "Our tasting process is
vindicated when the same waters are rated by a completely different
panel of judges each year and still win."

Famous
“foodie” judges spent two days savoring 120 waters from
19 states and nine foreign countries. Under blind taste-test
guidelines like those used for wine, judges rated waters for
appearance -- it should be clear or slightly opaque for glacial
waters, aroma -- none, taste -- clean, mouth feel -- light, leaving
you thirsty for more. Though almost all of its water comes from
thousands of miles away, the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California that serves Los Angeles shared a gold medal
with close-to-the-source Clearbrook, in British Columbia.

This is quite a feat, so how does Los Angeles do it? I have an
explanation that goes back decades. Since its completion in 1941,
the 242-mile Colorado River Aqueduct has linked sparking blue Lake
Havasu in Arizona to Southern California. Serving 16 million
people, it delivers more than a billion gallons of water a day. The
aqueduct crosses five mountain ranges, passing through 100 miles of
16-foot diameter tunnel, 80 miles of buried pipeline, and 62 miles
of open canal.

Back in the 1960s, it was those miles of
open canal that caught our attention. It was then that Los Angeles
announced plans to supplement its Colorado River supplies by
importing waters from northern California. And so we, the patriotic
citizens of the Republic of Berkeley, whipped up what we called
Project Go With the Flow. On the eve of the 1968 presidential
election, our idea was to change the hearts and minds of the people
of Los Angeles with a massive dose of LSD, the psychedelic drug
that put the “electric” into the acid tests made famous
by writer Ken Kesey. My Berkeley roommate had grown up with Kesey
in La Junta, Colo., and getting enough LSD -- then legal -- was no
problem. A friend serving in the Army Reserves got us an army-issue
55-gallon drum stamped “Drinking Water.” It had a
screw-on top, so we just kept adding LSD until taste tests by our
panel of experts told us the mix seemed just about right.

I had a 1960 blue and white Ford station wagon, named the Narwhale,
on loan from a friend serving in Viet Nam. It ran great, except for
a bum water pump, which meant you had to refill the radiator
periodically to avoid overheating. Thanks to our brew in its belly,
the Narwhale sped south from Berkeley toward our target, one poorly
patrolled spot on the open canals of the Colorado River Aqueduct.

We left at dusk to take advantage of cool temperatures.
The plan was to drive all night, snip a little barbed wire, and
decant the drum at dawn. Did we succeed? Water connoisseurs today,
you be the judge.

This memory slammed me recently as I
paddled a kayak downstream on Lake Havasu, drawn by the pull of the
colossal pumps that labor at the intakes of the Colorado River
Aqueduct. There, the river flows uphill through pipes that gleam
silver under the desert sun. The air snaps and crackles with
electric power delivered to the pumps from nearby Parker Dam, via
230 kilovolt power lines. In these days of Homeland Security (thank
goodness!) you can no longer approach municipal water supplies. I
found this out when a speedboat roared out to intercept me.

Why was I staring at the pumping plant?
“Well,” I told the security guards, “My father
was an engineer who worked on this project back in the
1930s.” A guard replied, “We get nervous when people
linger longer than they need to.”

But why trust me
and this cockamamie story? Now there is a way to conduct community
drug tests. By analyzing trace elements in sewage, biologists can
run accurate tests on an entire population without ever asking
anyone to fill a cup. Did we succeed in bringing mass enlightenment
to the people of Los Angeles? Did we improve the drinking water
forever? The Narwhale certainly ran better when we filled her
radiator from that olive-drab drum.

So, when you read
about Los Angeles as the consistent winner of the Academy Awards
(of Water), you can say, “I know. . . . the rest of the
story.”

Tom Wolf is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News
(hcn.org). He wintered this year at Lake Havasu, Arizona,
where he completed his latest book, “Arthur
Carhart:Wilderness Prophet.”